Cranberry Orange Cheesecake Pears

I was making a list of all my favorite healthy treats and realized that I had no replacement for cheesecake. I really love a little slice of cheesecake.

The same day, I was checking out the magazine aisle and saw the newest copy of my favorite food magazine Clean Eating. And right there on the cover it had this recipe. It is mostly healthy ingredients--low fat cream cheese is really the only one that would qualify as bad for you on my list, but for a treat, I'll take it. The cinnamon and cranberry makes your house smell sooo good and is fun to do with the kids. Miles said "Thanks mommy, this is the best cake ever." I had to agree, it is delicious and would be a beautiful Thanksgiving pie replacement.

So here it is, in all its 208 calorie per serving glory:

Serves 10
Ingredients:

Pears:

10 bosc pears (really only five total pears, then you half them and have 10 halves. Bosc pears are brown and have longer necks than the others)
2 cinnamon sticks
2 cups 100% cranberry juice
2 cups orange juice
1 vanilla bean split lengthwise (I omitted this since I don't have any, but I am sure it makes it extra delicious)

Cheesecake Stuffing:

1 cup light cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp dried ground ginger
1/8 tsp almond extract
1/3 c dried unsweetened cranberries
1/3 c unsalted, sliced almonds toasted

Instructions:

1. slice pears in half and peel. Trim bottoms so that they lay flat. Using a small spoon or melon baller, scoop out and discard cores. Place pears in a very large, wide, heavy bottomed saucepan. (I just used my big covered skillet). Add cinnamon sticks and juices. Scrape out seeds from vanilla bean and stir in; add scraped bean husks too.

2. Bring to a boil then reduce heat. Cover and simmer, occasionally turning pears over (I didn't do this and they were fine) to carefully ensure even cooking until almost tender but still a little firm, about 20-25 minutes.

3. In a bowl, stir cream cheese with vanilla extract, ginger and almond extract until mixed. If the mixture is too thick, asdd a few spoonfuls of hot pear cooking liquid. Stir in cranberries and almonds.

4. Carefully spoon pears onto a large platter. Cover and refrigerate to cool completely. Boil remaining pear liquid in pan, stirring often, until it reduces to 1/2 cup. The sauce will foam and bubble toward the end of the cooking, so be sure to stir often. Remove from heat and discard cinnamon sticks and vanilla husks.

5. To serve, fill pears with cream cheese mixture. Place on plates and spoon sauce over top.

Calories: 208
Total Fat: 6 g
Carbs: 38 g
Fiber: 5 g
Protein: 4 g

Healthy Strawberry Smoothie Popsicles

Last night we had some strawberries to use up, so I made a smoothie. The kids loved it! So I ended up making two batches, and another today. I made a variation for Simone.

Here is the recipe:

2 cups Strawberries
1 cup Plain yogurt
1 T vanilla
3 T agave nectar
2 T orange juice concentrate
1 tray ice (unecessary if you use frozen strawberries)
Just enough water to blend

You can use stevia to sweeten this instead of agave if you don't want the extra calories.

And in Simone's I added 1/3 cup cashews to make it thicker and creamier (trying to fatten up my skinny girl!). My Blendtec blends it perfectly smooth, but if you don't have a powerful blender, I would omit them.

We poured some of the smoothie into our popsicle molds. The kids loved having popsicles for breakfast this morning and after school.

Here is my happy girl with her popsicle. The push up was too difficult for her little hands, so we used our other molds.

Healthy Sack Lunch Ideas!

With my kids starting school tomorrow, I thought it would be great to get some ideas saved for future reference here. This year, Elise has informed me that she doesn’t want to eat sugar for the whole school year in exchange for money to buy clothes. (Score! I have to buy them clothes anyway, so this is somewhat of a freebie for me!) So all of these ideas will be sugar-free.

I have a little cooler that I bring with me in the car when my kids have gymnastics. I pack it with fruit, cheese, crackers, nuts, etc and take the kids that are waiting with me to the park for a picnic so we don’t have to do a fast food run.

Gear:

First things first, having the right storage is a big help. Last year, my friends were talking about food jars. Something I’d never heard of. I was so happy to fork out the $12 or whatever it cost (I remember it being somewhat pricey at Target by the coolers and thermos stuff). It has totally saved me from fixing sandwiches every single day. And with the Great Harvest bread that we like at $5 a loaf, I've definitely saved money with this little investment.

This is what the food jar looks like:

I pop in some leftovers in the microwave when I am fixing her lunch, then stick it in the food jar. At lunchtime, it is still nice and hot. I use the food jar for soup (which my kids absolutely love), and for cold items like frozen berries and yogurt.

The other items I love are the 1/3 cup sized gladware containers. Often they have them in the checkout aisle at Wal-mart on the side by the hand sanitizers, Kleenex and Carmex. It is just the perfect size for applesauce, cottage cheese, yogurt, salad dressing, dips, peanut butter for dipping apples, hummus, oil and vinegar, strawberries, kiwi, grapes, blueberries etc. I love that they don’t leak! Elise loves oil and vinegar to dip her bread into. So I can just pour a bit into these, and it fits great.

I also bought some partitioned containers for making our own lunchables. They look like this:

I use them with wasa crackers. My kids will eat those, some people think they taste like cardboard. I am a big fan though! I love them. And they are very low calorie and whole grain.

I use the shallow sandwich sized containers for salads. Elise just started liking salad. She loves Ceasar salad, so we’ll be making those a lot I think.

Here is Jared's lunchbox from Costco. The girls like their cute ones best, but this one is highly functional, and Elise will just have to use it until hers comes:

Some ideas of things to pack--Leftovers are definitely the quickest thing to pop into the food jar:

• Soups
• Enchiladas
• Pasta
• Chicken Ceasar salad (dressing separate so it doesn’t get wilted)
• Chili
• Rice, corn and Beans bowl—salsa, avocado, cheese
• Sweet Potatoes

Other main events:

• Turkey sandwich with cheese avocado and tomato
• Peanut butter and honey sandwich
• Chicken tacos—I put cabbage in my tacos to keep them more crunchy, and include a lime wedge and some pico de gallo or salsa.
• Turkey Wrap, cheese, salsa, avocado and wrap tightly!
• Homemade lunchables (with good meat and crackers in sectioned container)
• Pita pocket sandwich

We also have some school lunch staples for when we are crunched for time. These include things that can just be tossed into the bag and I buy them all from Costco:

• Applesauce cups--make sure they don't have corn syrup and sugar
• String Cheese
• Fruit Leathers--we like the 100% fruit Stretch Island brand
• Dried apples and other fruits
• 100% juice Capri suns—we freeze these and use them when we want to keep something cold
• Mini waters from Costco—half the size of the tall ones, great frozen also since they thaw by lunchtime
• Baby carrots individually wrapped
• Laughing cow cheese wedges

Fruits my kids love at school: (can dip with yogurt or peanut butter)

• Frozen berries with plain yogurt and agave nectar
• Kiwi
• Mango
• peaches
• Strawberries
• Grapes
• Oranges
• Apple slices (love to dip in Adam’s peanut butter)
• Fresh pineapple
• Thread on a caramel apple stick for fun

Veggies: (can dip with hummus or ranch)

• Cucumbers
• Carrots
• Celery
• Bell Peppers (Monet’s favorite!)
• Edamame (come in small individual packages from Costco in the frozen section)

Just a little tip about the hummus, I don't eat THAT much hummus. So I buy the one from Costco, put it in the smaller 1/3 cup sized containers and freeze it. Then I have just enough for when I am craving it, but don't waste the rest. We do the same thing with the Pesto from Costco.

Other Stuff:

• Popcorn using the microwave in a brown bag method and adding a little salt and butter
• Trailmix—I make my own mix from the bulk bins--shredded unsweetened coconut, raisins, dates, sunflower seeds, almonds, cashews
• Dark chocolate square to dip in peanut butter
• Hard cooked egg with salt
• Baked tortilla chips with cottage cheese—these baked chips are hard to find these days. It looks like Tostitos doesn’t carry theirs anymore, but you can always throw some corn tortillas into the oven and bake them for a few minutes to make your own.
• Pickles and “banana peppers” those little sandwich peppers, my kids love them!
• Box of Raisins

Fun Stuff:

• Notes for kids with a riddle or a joke—great tip from restaurants. Make it fun! My girls LOVE telling jokes right now. Especially Monet.
• Stickers, Mad Libs, Crossword Puzzles, Word Finds, and Mazes

Book Review: The Antioxidant Miracle

The Antioxidant Miracle
by Lester Packer, PH.D.

I found this book on my husbands bookshelf and thought I'd read it while waiting for my girls at their gymnastics lessons.

I loved it! It was great for me to understand WHY we are told to eat all the "colors of the rainbow." It explained the many different kinds of antioxidants and how they work together to protect our body from harmful free radicals. Reading this book made me want to eat better. I really find that reading about health and nutrition is such a great motivator for me.

The author is the expert in antioxidant research, and cites lots of interesting studies.

New Recipes Coming Soon!

Wow, the time got away from me. I've been taking pictures and trying out new recipes--and not sharing them. So here are some of the ones that I'll be posting this weekend:

Cheddar Broccoli Soup (healthy version made with carrots and a little cheese--my kids love it)
Tomatillo Soup (one of my favorites from our ward cookbook)
Green Chicken Enchiladas
Dairy Free Chocolate Coconut Smoothies (with real young coconuts and cacao nibs)
Mom's Avocado Salad
Hawaiian Haystacks
Ashlee's yummy oatmeal
Bekah's breakfast omlette with microgreens
Loaded Pizza on whole wheat crust

Fruit Baby Carriage

We had a baby shower at my house and I'd mentioned that I wanted to do something fun and festive with fruit. Turns out my friend had a picture of a cute shower idea.

So this is how it turned out! It was fun--my kids thought it was so cool. Kinda like pumpkin carving but with a watermelon.

I have some good friends that are awesome at decorating cakes. But I can't have that much sugar around or I will eat nonstop. So--fruit carving is a great alternative! Fills that need for creativity.

I love those fruit flowers on skewers too. I'd love to do those for Easter, Mother's Day or the Fourth of July.

I love my Blendtec Blender!

So, I am in love with my blender. I was trying out a new recipe yesterday for a whole wheat pizza crust. I want to find a good one, and let's face it, a lot of whole wheat pizza crusts taste horrible.

So, I found a recipe that uses soft white wheat and hard white wheat. I have both of those! In my food storage, and they are in giant 45 lb buckets that have never been opened. So I actually opened one up, put a couple of cups in my BLENDER and made flour! It was so cool. I was so excited. Then, my recipe called for cornmeal. But I don't have cornmeal I thought to myself. Then I remembered that I do have a huge thing of popcorn. So I put the popcorn kernals in the blender, and voila! Cornmeal.

I own a Blendtec. I have absolutely loved it. My mom bought a Vitamix and a Blendtec at Costco after Simone was born as a "baby gift." She likes to give me "baby gifts" that will encourage healthy eating. We'd burned through about five of the Costco Oster blenders in the last two years with all of our smoothies. But I could never bring myself to spend $400 on a blender. So she bought it for me. I have absolutely loved it. I tried the Vitamix first, but didn't love how the lid was hard to put on. My mom preferred it over the Blendtec, and I preferred the Blendtec. I loved how it fit under the counter.

I can make nutmilks--no grit at all. Soups, sauces, smoothies, grinds grains, etc. I put whole flaxseeds in my smoothies instead of the ground flax meal, and it grinds it up really nicely. I rarely use flour in my cooking, so it is hard for me to buy whole wheat flour. It just gets old and rancid too quickly. So this is a great little solution.

I didn't know what I was missing before.

The pizza dough turned out pretty good, not incredible. I love chewy crusts--so I've yet to figure that one out. Any suggestions?